This kind of project needs something like 2 engineers max who really know what they're doing. Unfortunately, very few people know what they're doing.
Anything more than that and you are doomed. The hardware is about $100K to develop if you know what you're doing. Probably closer to $250K if you don't.
Everything else is time--software, debugging, user testing, etc.
Andrew "bunnie" Huang's blog is great for understanding all the crap you are going to wade through to do production.
http://www.bunniestudios.com/
The DEFCON discussion is always especially interesting because it is a VERY constrained problem: low volume overall (for electronics <50,000 is low volume) but high volume in terms of units-per-time, tight cost constraint, generally a tight battery constrain, and a desire for hackability.
Operations is hard. Let's go shopping.
There is a reason why there is a Chief Operations Officer in manufacturing companies ...
It's a bit of a cliché at this point that the bottleneck for DEFCON badges is Customs and they always arrive at the very last minute.
The exception was DEFCON 19's non-electronic, titanium badges, which were not just on time but arrived so early that the DEFCON staff hadn't taken over the conference location yet, so they ended up getting stored in someone's hotel room.
This kind of project needs something like 2 engineers max who really know what they're doing. Unfortunately, very few people know what they're doing.
Anything more than that and you are doomed. The hardware is about $100K to develop if you know what you're doing. Probably closer to $250K if you don't.
Everything else is time--software, debugging, user testing, etc.
Andrew "bunnie" Huang's blog is great for understanding all the crap you are going to wade through to do production. http://www.bunniestudios.com/
The discussions about what goes into producing the DEFCON badges each year are also fascinating: http://www.nutsvolts.com/uploads/magazine_downloads/DEFCON-1...
The DEFCON discussion is always especially interesting because it is a VERY constrained problem: low volume overall (for electronics <50,000 is low volume) but high volume in terms of units-per-time, tight cost constraint, generally a tight battery constrain, and a desire for hackability.
Operations is hard. Let's go shopping.
There is a reason why there is a Chief Operations Officer in manufacturing companies ...